I’m in Brighton this week. And, what, with 24hr electricity, TV and enough cafés and restaurants with a view of the seafront, I’ve had time to relax my mind.
Well, since some have said that my blog is a bit on the heavy side, and because I’ve been reading proper, I mean, proper newspapers and broadsheets all week, I once again came across the Sixty Second Interview and so I thought I’d try one on Ms TheArtofLivingRuka:
What do you know for sure? That God is.
Favorite book: The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. Nobody should live and die without reading that book.
On a desert island who or what would you want with you: The Holy Spirit and my BlackBerry
Where and when you recently knew complete happiness: Lagos, November 2008 – an old friend, now based in Dubai and who I had not seen for a decade, visited. We had lunch with two other mutual friends at Piccolo Mondo – hugging, crying, chatting, laughing, and reminiscing. It was delightful. Those were three hours of my life that I would repeat over and over and over again.
Favorite place: Honestly? I’d have to say Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar, both in Tanzania. Dar is for me the location of bliss, delight and pure comfort. The seafront eating places, the quaint buildings in town, the easy going generally quiet pace, and of course my ‘family’ in Dar (friends from University days). And Zanzibar? My goodness. What words? Un-spoilt, beautiful and traditional almost to a fault, and yes, very quaint.
The peculiarity you most dislike in yourself? Gosh, so many! The most? What about being excessively guarded and deliberative?
The trait you most dislike in others? Arrogance and self-importance
What do you most guard? My peace and joy
If wishes were horses, next leisure destination? The Mount Nelson, Cape Town, South Africa – preferably during the next Cape Town Jazz festival
Favorite restaurant: Sky Bar and Restaurant, Lagos; La Taverna Tropicana, Accra on a Friday or Saturday night; La Chaumiere, Accra; and the New Federal Palace Hotel, on the terrace, on a lazy Sunday afternoon
What gets up your skin? Social injustice
What draws you to a person? Sincerity, warmth, kindness, honesty and intellectual depth.
Motto: fight the good fight of faith
Who would you pay to spend an hour with: but you know I spend every second of every hour with my Father, right? So long as that's understood! Besides Him, at this moment, only Jimmy Dludlu comes to mind. He doing his stuff on the guitar, me listening and thanking God for the moment. But then of course there’s Bishop Desmond Tutu, Oprah Winfrey, Bishop T D Jakes……
What is your latest trivial worry: I am exercising harder than I've ever done (well, to my mind I am) and yet it takes like forever to lose one kilo...
Monday 27 April 2009
Friday 17 April 2009
The Legal Dissolution of a Marriage
Maybe it’s something to do with me being on the eve of my fortieth year but everywhere I look and everywhere I turn too many friends and loved ones of the same age world over are on the edge. Marriage-edge. Joyless and troubling unions leaning onto separation and divorce.
Disquieting. Really disquieting.
What is more disturbing is the emotional trauma that is attendant with this edge: for some are literally battling with the decision to separate and divorce even in the midst of their Christian faith and desire to honour The Word that says “God hates divorce”.
Divorce and Our Easter Reflection
Over Easter I discussed this same issue with a dear, dear, dear sister. Divorced herself, she takes that stand that what God hates is the process of divorce. The physical, emotional, psychological and of course spiritual angst that precedes divorce – and for some that may mean decades.
My sister and I could not fathom the thought that Love Himself would want His child to remain in an emotionally or physically tormenting marriage union. Surely this could not be one’s appointed end? This pain-filled, soul wrenching union? Joy sapped day in day out; hope and dreams suspended year in, year out? Surely His intentions for us and good and not evil? Surely He does not want us to suffer unrest day in, day out in a so-called marriage union where spouses are not even on speaking terms, let alone sharing the same bedroom and yet, they are supposedly bringing up children together ‘in the way of The Lord’? Surely that is a sure, sure guarantee of producing generations of dysfunctional adults and marriages?
Jaws, the divorce lawyer
It was just the other day that I heard a renowned divorce lawyer (aka Jaws) interviewed on the BBC World Service. A hitherto pre-global financial crisis young NY city resident with a well-paid professional job and an affluent, materialistic lifestyle had gone to court to re-negotiate the terms of his divorce. The terms and conditions of his income had taken a deep slide and he needed the terms of his divorce settlement with his wife to reflect this new, declined income.
What was Jaws’ take on this? The next couple of years are going to see more pre-nups and post-nups. We are going to be seeing ‘marriage’ in a very different format. ‘To have and to hold; for richer, for poorer’ has gone out of the window. Selah. His take was that over the years he had seen clients who married for a whole lot of reasons outside of affection and companionship. Money counted for one of these reasons, as did status. But many, he said, just simply got it wrong when it came to choosing a life partner.
And the Christian Church?
Where does that leave us in The Christian Church? What should we be doing to support our members, our body, crying out for help before and after marriage?
I certainly don’t have the answers but what I do know is that we must do better than we are doing here and now. How so?
Well, there’s the one of Priest X or Pastor Y, suggesting that a spouse should just learn to accept that their other half will have mistresses, for that is just the way things are. Yes, and I should risk AIDS and all other STDs?
And the one of Priest X or Pastor Y retorting that society would render one an outcast one divorced – for divorced women are simply irresponsible. Note, no mention of the God-factor in all of this, just the issues of what society will think? Yes, so I should rest in this fallow land of a life-sapping union all the same till death do us part?
And the one where Priest X and Pastor Y reminds us that The Bible records that is better to marry than to burn with passion and sin. As such better marry and legitimately fan the flames of your passions, less you sin. Yes. We’ll see you in post-marital counseling in six months time when flames momentarily fanned you realize that, well, you and this spouse ain’t got not one thing in common.
Accepting that these are quite sensitive issues to discuss let alone resolve, it’s been so excruciatingly distressing witnessing the pain of loved ones who have gone through or are going through this whole process. Believe me, I have sobbed one too many times with and for friends over the past few years on this very matter.
Personally, I am more inclined to resolve that what my God and Father hates is the process of divorce –the season pain and sorrow that His children go through before and after the act divorce – and not necessarily the act of divorce itself. No, not the legal and radical severance of closely related people, though that in itself may be tortuous.
I may be wrong, but as for today, that is my personal conviction.
Disquieting. Really disquieting.
What is more disturbing is the emotional trauma that is attendant with this edge: for some are literally battling with the decision to separate and divorce even in the midst of their Christian faith and desire to honour The Word that says “God hates divorce”.
Divorce and Our Easter Reflection
Over Easter I discussed this same issue with a dear, dear, dear sister. Divorced herself, she takes that stand that what God hates is the process of divorce. The physical, emotional, psychological and of course spiritual angst that precedes divorce – and for some that may mean decades.
My sister and I could not fathom the thought that Love Himself would want His child to remain in an emotionally or physically tormenting marriage union. Surely this could not be one’s appointed end? This pain-filled, soul wrenching union? Joy sapped day in day out; hope and dreams suspended year in, year out? Surely His intentions for us and good and not evil? Surely He does not want us to suffer unrest day in, day out in a so-called marriage union where spouses are not even on speaking terms, let alone sharing the same bedroom and yet, they are supposedly bringing up children together ‘in the way of The Lord’? Surely that is a sure, sure guarantee of producing generations of dysfunctional adults and marriages?
Jaws, the divorce lawyer
It was just the other day that I heard a renowned divorce lawyer (aka Jaws) interviewed on the BBC World Service. A hitherto pre-global financial crisis young NY city resident with a well-paid professional job and an affluent, materialistic lifestyle had gone to court to re-negotiate the terms of his divorce. The terms and conditions of his income had taken a deep slide and he needed the terms of his divorce settlement with his wife to reflect this new, declined income.
What was Jaws’ take on this? The next couple of years are going to see more pre-nups and post-nups. We are going to be seeing ‘marriage’ in a very different format. ‘To have and to hold; for richer, for poorer’ has gone out of the window. Selah. His take was that over the years he had seen clients who married for a whole lot of reasons outside of affection and companionship. Money counted for one of these reasons, as did status. But many, he said, just simply got it wrong when it came to choosing a life partner.
And the Christian Church?
Where does that leave us in The Christian Church? What should we be doing to support our members, our body, crying out for help before and after marriage?
I certainly don’t have the answers but what I do know is that we must do better than we are doing here and now. How so?
Well, there’s the one of Priest X or Pastor Y, suggesting that a spouse should just learn to accept that their other half will have mistresses, for that is just the way things are. Yes, and I should risk AIDS and all other STDs?
And the one of Priest X or Pastor Y retorting that society would render one an outcast one divorced – for divorced women are simply irresponsible. Note, no mention of the God-factor in all of this, just the issues of what society will think? Yes, so I should rest in this fallow land of a life-sapping union all the same till death do us part?
And the one where Priest X and Pastor Y reminds us that The Bible records that is better to marry than to burn with passion and sin. As such better marry and legitimately fan the flames of your passions, less you sin. Yes. We’ll see you in post-marital counseling in six months time when flames momentarily fanned you realize that, well, you and this spouse ain’t got not one thing in common.
Accepting that these are quite sensitive issues to discuss let alone resolve, it’s been so excruciatingly distressing witnessing the pain of loved ones who have gone through or are going through this whole process. Believe me, I have sobbed one too many times with and for friends over the past few years on this very matter.
Personally, I am more inclined to resolve that what my God and Father hates is the process of divorce –the season pain and sorrow that His children go through before and after the act divorce – and not necessarily the act of divorce itself. No, not the legal and radical severance of closely related people, though that in itself may be tortuous.
I may be wrong, but as for today, that is my personal conviction.
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